The giants of the Meta and X Social Networks approved ads aimed at users in Germany with a violent speech of anti-musulman and anti-Judor EkoA non -profit campaign group of corporate responsibility.
The group’s researchers tested whether the advertisement of the two platforms would approve or reject the presentations for advertisements that contain hateful and violent messages that are directed to minorities before an election where immigration has taken the center of the stage in the Conventional political speech, including ads containing anti-musulm insults; Ask immigrants to be imprisoned in concentration fields or that they are gas; and images generated by the mosques and synagogues that burn.
Most test ads were approved within a few hours of being sent for review in mid -February. The Federal Elections of Germany will take place on Sunday, February 23.
Scheduled Hate Speech ads
Eko said X approved the 10 hate speech ads that his researchers presented a few days before federal elections were due, while Meta approved half (five ads) for running on Facebook (and potentially also Instagram), although he rejected to the other five.
The reason why Meta anticipated the five rejections indicated that the platform believed that there could be risks of political or social sensitivity that could influence the vote.
However, the five ads that target approved included a violent hatred speech that compared Muslim refugees with a “virus”, “alimañas” or “rodents”, marking Muslim immigrants as “rapists” and asking to sterilize, burn or soda. Meta also approved an announcement that requested that the synagogues were burned to “stop the agenda of global Jewish rats.”
As a note, Eko says that none of the images generated by AI that he used to illustrate the hate speech ads was labeled as artificially generated, however, half of the 10 ads were still approved by goal, regardless of whether the company had one Policy that requires the dissemination of the use of images of AI for ads on social matters, elections or politics.
X, meanwhile, approved the five hate ads, and five others containing an equally violent hate speech aimed at Muslims and Jews.
These additional approved ads included messages of attack on “rodent” immigrants that the copy of the announcement said they are “flooding” the country “to steal our democracy” and an anti -Semitic insult that suggested that the Jews are lying on climate change to destroy the European industry and accumulate economic power.
The last announcement was combined with images generated by AI representing a group of shady men sitting around a table surrounded by gold bars battery measured in antiseemitic tropes.
Another ad x approved contained a direct attack against the SPD, the central-left party that currently leads the German coalition government, with a false statement that the party wants to collect 60 million Muslim refugees from the Middle East, before trying to Try to prepare a violent answer. X also properly programmed an ad that suggests that “leftists” want “open borders”, and asking for the extermination of “rapist” Muslims.
Elon Musk, the owner of X, has used the social networks platform where he has about 220 million followers to intervene personally in the German elections. In A Tweet in DecemberHe asked the German voters to support the AFD party from the right end to “save Germany.” He has also organized a live broadcast with the AFD leader, Alice Weidel, in X.
EKO researchers disabled all trial ads before they had been approved to be executed to ensure that there are no users of the platform exposed to violent hate speech.
He says that the tests stand out obvious failures with the approach of advertisement platforms for content moderation. In fact, in the case of X, it is not clear if the platform is making advertisement moderation, since the 10 violent hate speech ads were rapidly approved to exhibit.
The results also suggest that advertisement platforms could obtain income as a result of distributing a violent hate speech.
EU digital services law in the framework
Eko’s evidence suggests that none of the platforms is applying prohibitions in the hate discourse that both say they apply to the advertisement content in their own policies. In addition, in the case of Meta, Eko reached the same conclusion after making A similar test In 2023, before the new EU online government rules that enter, which suggests that the regime has no effect on how it works.
“Our findings suggest that the moderation systems of advertisements promoted by the Meta AI remain fundamentally broken, despite the fact that the Digital Services Law (DSA) is now in full effect,” said a spokesman from Eko to britcommerce.
“Instead of strengthening their process of reviewing ads or policies of hate speech, goal seems to be going back in all areas,” they added, pointing out the recent announcement of the company on moderation and verification of facts as a sign of ” Active regression “that suggest that it places it in a direct collision course with DSA rules on systemic risks.
Eko has presented his latest findings to the European Commission, which supervises the application of key aspects of the DSA in the social media giant couple. He also said he shared the results with both companies, but none responded.
The EU has open DSA investigations in Meta and X, which include concerns about electoral security and illegal content, but the commission has not yet completed these procedures. However, in April he said that he suspects that a goal of inadequate moderation of political advertisements.
A preliminary decision on a part of his DSA investigation into X, which was announced in July, included suspicion that the platform is not up to the advertising transparency rules of the regulation. However, complete research, which began in December 2023, also refers to illegal content risks, and the EU has not yet reached any finding in most of the investigation more than a year later.
The confirmed infractions of the DSA can attract sanctions of up to 6% of the global annual billing, while the systemic breach could even lead to regional access to the rape platforms that are temporarily blocked.
But, for now, the EU is still taking its time to decide in the target and x probes, so, waiting for final decisions, any sanction of DSA remains in the air.
Meanwhile, now it is just a matter of hours before German voters go to the polls, and a growing body of civil society research suggests that the regulation of flagship online of the EU has not been able to protect the democratic process of the EU economy of a variety of technology fed. Threats
Earlier this week, Global Witness published the results of the algorithmic food tests of X and Tiktok “for you” in Germany, which suggest that the platforms are biased in favor of promoting the AFD content versus the content of other parties politicians Civil society researchers have also accused X of blocking access to data to prevent them from studying electoral security risks in the period prior to the German survey; Access to DSA is supposed to enable.
“The European Commission has taken important measures by opening DSA investigations in Meta and X, we now need to see that the commission takes solid measures to address the concerns raised as part of these investigations,” Eko’s spokesman also told us.
“Our findings, together with the growing evidence of other civil society groups, show that Big Tech will not clean its platforms voluntarily. Meta and X continue to allow illegal hate discourse, incitement to violence and electoral misinformation to extend on a scale, despite their legal obligations under the DSA, ”added the spokesman. (We have retained the spokesman’s name to avoid harassment).
“Regulators must take solid measures, both to enforce the DSA and, for example, implement pre -election mitigation measures. This could include the deactivation of recommendation systems based on profiles immediately before the elections and implement other appropriate “stained glass” measures to avoid the algorithmic amplification of the limit content, such as the hate content in the career elections. “
The campaign group also warns that the EU now faces Trump administration pressure to soften its approach to regulate the great technology. “In the current political climate, there is a real danger that the commission does not fully enforce these new laws as a concession to the United States,” they suggest.